I decorated my motorcycle's sidecar, helmets, and dogs in a Christmas motif and Francine, Osita, Lupa, and I piled on and went for a ride around Venice today to spread glad tidings on this merry Christmas. We brought along a Christmas sack full of candy canes and handed them to people we met along the way.

I had this little idea to film various body parts as they go about their relatively mundane, but on some level fascinating, impressive routines.

I made a little sample video and camera holder just to see whether it was worth investigating further, and I think it probably is.

Here's the sample video and camera holder.

And here's what the little camera holder I made looks like. The camera is this tiny little one that is intended for wearing on helmets when you bike ride, ride your motorcycle, or surf, or skydive, it's tiny and pretty rugged.

I'm currently working on construction of version 2 of the camera holder as well as playing with the software needed to make the video I capture ultimately compelling.

Finally had a chance to finish up and paint the sidecar cage. I'm very pleased with how it came out. I learned a lot of lessons which would lead me to do some things differently were I to do it again, but I doubt I would do it again because most of those lessons related to my cutting lots of corners knowing my attention span was limited and I just needed to push through and get it done as quickly as possible. And fortunately nobody else will know what I know about the corners I cut, so it hardly matters. I think the entire project took me about 35 hours, from idea to completion.

The dogs have yet to ride in the completed version. On what was to be the first test ride, with dogs all loaded up and in their goggles, the spark advance cable snapped as I tried to start the engine. I replaced that part within a day or two only to have the December rains descend on Southern California. Hopefully by Wednesday they clouds will part and the dogs and I can show it off.

I've been performing sea trials of the custom dog cage I built for my sidecar rig. Below are the photos and video of Osita and Lupa in their new three wheeled conveyance. Fortunately the dogs seems to love it, despite the tight quarters.

Everything seems to be working well, so all I need to do is reinforce, redo, and temper a few welds and then give it a paint job (black). I will also make a removable dog bowl holder so they can travel in style with a bowl of water and food. You can see some earlier photos of the cage.

The Griffith Park Sidecar Rally was this past Sunday and the day before I got the bright idea of making a custom fit cage / crate to fit in the sidecar bucket for the easy and safe transportation of pets. I had the idea about 4 years ago but never got beyond a few sketches. Eventually Osita just started joining me without a cage (instead held in with a padded harness). That system worked brilliantly, but Osita has recently begun palling around with another smaller dog and I'd like to occasionally take them both in the sidecar and the harness system just wouldn't cut it. Sadly, as so often happens, I discovered I was overly ambitious and started way too late, so there was no way I was going to finish it in time for the rally... but that's ok, it was the impetus I needed to get started, and it's now about 85% done. The only tricky part which still remains will be the door, and that will only be tricky because it'll take a bit of planning, measuring, cutting, etc. The rest of the cage I made on the fly without any drawings, rulers, notes, or anything; I just added every new piece of metal where I thought I wanted it (I knew if I started by planning I'd never actually make it). Hopefully I'll be done by next weekend, painting (black) and all. (It's been nice to get back to oxy-acetylene welding... though my hands are killing from all the many burns.)

The scooter group I'm in took great these photos of this year's rally; I didn't make their ride, sadly, I was still working on building this when they left. Among those photos are two of sidecars for dogs, apparently my idea wasn't so unique:

I lied to you, once upon a time. I wanted you to see the me I aspired to be, rather than the me I was.

{{I'm watching a couple down the street. Perhaps it's a first date. She is achingly cute, he a bit of a brute; though he has an incongruously clever folding bicycle. They walked from their pleasant enough conversation a few feet away from me down to her car, where they pause in awkward end-of-date blather. She is trying to kindly tell him with her silent geography and closing pose that she has not made up her mind about him, and that he would be a fool to attempt a kiss. After some minutes they hug, her chin pins her left shoulder, ensuring there will be no misunderstanding lips; I pity them both this moment. I pity us all our inability to speak or hear honest things. She drives off; I doubt there will be a second date.}}

I once thought you and I might be compatibly flawed, fodder for a bff or a bf. Not sure why. Something you said or didn't say, something you were or weren't. Who knows.

My name was Quinxy. I was and will likely forever be a bit of a lost soul. I will likely always be struggling to understand this foreign and unfamiliar world, will likely always be struggling to express my thoughts about it, and will likely always suffer for the prettier world I can imagine yet not create. But I am happy, of a sort, and find peace(s).

My resolution for this year is to be more mischievous, to keep only but absolutely one toe dipped in sinful waters. While I instinctively reject the notion that evil must exist in the world if there is to be good, I concede we are stuck with it. As such, we might as well pay attention to what evil can teach us about being good, and living well, and use at least mildly evil acts as landmarks to plot our path towards goodlier shores. So this year I am trying to better define that line between good and evil by probing that boundary with mischievous acts, getting as near as I dare, never quite stepping over.

The acts will all be harmless pseudo evils, intended (if having any external intention at all) to do no more than confuse, entropize, inspire, and/or incite.

Among my mischievous goals for the year:

Create intricate large scale public hoaxes. [I've already completed one such hoax, getting the attention of tens of thousands of people!]

Graffitti meaningful messages / art in non-damaging public places. [Working on the art for this.]

Lie pointlessly and frequently to strangers.

Practice and use a British and/or Scottish accent in public.

Always use random names when placing food, beverage orders.

Intercept a restaurant delivery order, happening to catch a delivery person on their way to someone's front door, paying for that food, then eating it (or donating it to homeless people if it has meat/fish). [Almost did this the other day.]

Send mysteriously intriguing packages to strangers around the country.

I've always wanted to learn how to draw, but never actually gave it much of a try. I've always had lots of ideas (for inventions, alternate realities, etc.) that I wanted to express, but had no means to express them. So, I recently set about trying to learn to draw. And this is my first ever attempt at drawing something meant to look real, with shading. The power went out today, and I couldn't work, so I sat by my kitchen window and sketched the candle stick on the table.